GERMANY
Breitbart
by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.
19 Jul 20161
A new report issued by the German bishops’ conference paints a dismal picture of a Church in steady decline according to every relevant indicator.
During the year 2015, a total of 181,925 people left the Catholic Church in Germany, while only 2,685 people became Catholic and 6,474 came back to Catholicism. This follows on the worst year in the German Catholicism’s modern history, when in 2014 the Church lost a total of 218,000 people.
Average church attendance in Germany has also suffered a precipitous decline in the last 20 years, down from 18.6 percent in 1995 to just 10.4 percent in 2015.
Participation in other sacraments has revealed a similar downward trend. Between 1995 and the present the number of baptisms in Germany has fallen by more than a third, from almost 260,000 babies baptized 20 years ago to just over 167,000 in 2015.
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